It has been a month in the making, but it got me in the end. It started in earnest on Tuesday with a rough throat and a general feeling of unwellness, but it soon morphed into a streaming cold for a couple of days before heading to my chest. During the daytime I was battling on like a brave soldier, just feeling grotty, but what did for me was the lack of sleep caused by coughing and blowing my nose for long periods of the night. I had to resort to propping myself up on pillows to get some respite, but it meant that I was knackered even before I got to work. However, as a self-employed sole trader the show has to go on, and I have an adoring public that has to be satisfied, so ahead it was that I forged, until common sense prevailed and I admitted that it was necessary to give my body the chance to recover before I pushed it too far. By the time that I got back from my Friday delivery round at lunchtime I had decided that I would not be making an appearance at the Farmers’ Market on Saturday, which, barring holidays, is a very rare occurrence. My decision was assisted by a couple of contributory factors – the weather and the van.

They said it would be cold, and it was. Even with my fan heater on in the potting shed the temperature rarely got above 6º while I was working in there, and was often below that level, which is good for the vegetables but not so good for a poorly vegetable grower/purveyor. It was mostly overcast with it, so I couldn’t even get warmed up in the greenhouse, which is where I normally retire to for my coffee and lunch break. The cold also affected the van. It has been sluggish to fire up first thing when it has been chilly overnight for some time, so with below zero temperatures forecast I contacted the garage and told the fellow there that I thought that the glow plugs needed changing and could he accommodate me as a priority? “I’m fully booked this week” David responded apologetically, but after some negotiation (pathetic pleading) he agreed to fit me in tomorrow (Monday 24th).  What is a glow plug you ask? Well this is what AI says they are, and on this occasion I think that I believe them. A glow plug is an electrical heating element in a diesel engine that heats the combustion chamber to help start the engine in cold weather. Since diesel engines rely on the heat from compressed air to ignite fuel, glow plugs provide the necessary initial heat in cold conditions when the air may not get hot enough on its own. They preheat the air before startup and then often shut off once the engine is running. If you have a diesel vehicle you will know that you should turn the key to the point just before igniting the engine and hold it there until the indicator on the dash turns off, you can then turn the engine over. I just hoped that my van would limp through the week until the new glow plugs could be fitted. 

As the week progressed it was taking longer and longer to fire up, and by Thursday I thought that I was going to flatten the battery, but at the last moment she spluttered into life. However, on Friday morning my luck ran out, as did the juice in the battery. It was dark, freezing cold, and with thick ice on the vehicles, so I dashed to the garden shed to get my jump leads, only to find that they were not there, I must have left them at work. So I quickly made the decision to transfer all of the veg boxes from the van into the back of Jennifer’s estate car. Fortunately it was a fairly light week for orders, otherwise I wouldn’t have fitted them all in. All this while feeling less than optimal, which probably accounted for the fact that in my haste to set off I hadn’t changed into my work boots and was still wearing my garden clogs! I soon discovered that the lanes that I mostly travel on between Clare and Bury (via Hartest) had nasty patches of black ice at irregular intervals, and on numerous occasions the car twitched quite alarmingly. Another particularly bad area for this was around Hepworth and Walsham Le Willows. By the time I got back to Moyns Park I felt pooped and unwell, it was cold, it was going to be miserable standing at the market for hours, and I had a dead van, so the decision to pull out was easily made. Having made it I locked up and went home and reclined on the sofa. Since then I have taken it easy and this morning I feel that my condition is a little improved, which I attribute to multiple steam inhalations with drops of Olbas Oil in water with me hunched over a bowl with a towel over my head.

At the beginning of the week I got all of the tender plants inside that I mentioned last week, which was just as well. I also replaced a pane of glass in the big greenhouse that broke months ago when a stone flew up and smashed it while I was strimming, so it’s a bit less draughty than it was. I also had a good clearance and tidy up in the sunken greenhouse, making it ready for the post Christmas seed sowing bonanza.

This week there are Brussels sprouts, a limited number of sprout tops, cavolo nero, purple sprouting broccoli, Savoy cabbages and red cabbage. Parsnips, beetroot, leeks, swede, Jerusalem artichokes, orange and rainbow carrots. There are still some mini plum tomatoes, and mushrooms. Apples are Spartan again, plus oranges, lemons and avocados.

Unfortunately I felt unable to attend a music gig in Cambridge last night that I had been looking forward to since booking it at the end of April. I was to see Peter Hook and The Light. ‘Hooky’ was the bass player in Joy Division and New Order, both bands that I was a follower of from 1980 when the former first appeared on my radar. I think that it would have been quite emotional last night too, because it was only on Thursday that the death was announced of Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield, bassist for The Stone Roses and Primal Scream. Mani and Hooky collaborated on a project together several years ago and were good friends. It’s all very sad, Mani was 63 and died only 2 years after his wife Imelda succumbed to bowel cancer. They leave behind 12 year old twins.

I used the word bonanza a couple of paragraphs ago, and yesterday afternoon as I was relaxing in the November gloom I watched an old black and white Western film on the telly – it wasn’t Bonanza but it had everything – a Mormon wagon train, a gang of misfit outlaws, a snake oil quack doctor, red Indians (it was before they were Native Americans), and some good cowboys, plus a little love interest of course. I loved it, it felt very comforting on a foul afternoon.

We have a week of less cold but changeable weather in the week ahead. I am hopeful that I will be back up to full speed in the coming days and will be back at the market on Saturday.

Phil